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A while back we told you about Charlie, a free app that monitors your calendar and researches contacts you’re meeting with. An hour before the scheduled time, it sends you notable information about the person you’re meeting and the company he or she works for.
Now, Charlie has released a Chrome extension designed to make it easier to connect with LinkedIn users. The extension will reveal a LinkedIn user’s email address and provide the option to copy the email address, compose an email or request Charlie to research and send you information about that person. The research information is similar to what the app sends before a meeting, containing professional achievements and news.
You can install the extension from the Chrome Web Store. After installing and connecting the extension to your Google account, visit a random LinkedIn profile. You’ll find a new button labeled “Charlie Email Finder.”
Enlarge ImageScreenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
Click on the button, and a few seconds later Charlie will present you with the email address and buttons for the follow-up actions.
Update: Shortly after publishing this article, the CEO of Charlie, Aaron Frazin, reached out to clarify how the extension worked. According to Frazin, Charlie does not somehow bypass any security protocols put in place to protect a user’s LinkedIn account email address. The service simply takes a guess using its own algorithms at what the person’s email address is.
Randomly browsing through my contact’s LinkedIn profiles, I encountered only one profile where the app was unable to provide an email address (and it was my own profile, which was odd). All other profiles returned the proper email address for the contact.
According to the company’s email announcing the new feature, the extension will remain free while it’s in beta, but no further information about pricing or beta length was available.
